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The Concept of Culture

The Concept of Culture. Deciphering the Mask of Culture. Making the strange familiar Eating dog? Marrying cousins? Giving away prized possessions? Finger mutilation? Brothers sharing a wife?. Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings. Gestures (Singapore). Are Gestures Universal?.

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The Concept of Culture

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  1. The Concept of Culture

  2. Deciphering the Mask of Culture • Making the strange familiar • Eating dog? • Marrying cousins? • Giving away prized possessions? • Finger mutilation? • Brothers sharing a wife?

  3. Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings • Gestures (Singapore)

  4. Are Gestures Universal? • A-OK (U.S.) • Money (Japan) • F___ (Spain)

  5. Iran: -thumbs up sign is vulgar -signal with palm down Mexico: -show height with palm vertical -do not beckon with fingers Saudi Arabia: -avoid showing the sole of your shoe -it is disrespectful to cross your legs Zimbabwe: -it is rude to maintain eye contact

  6. Beliefs • Complements (Malaysia)

  7. Symbols • Gift giving (Chinese trading partner)

  8. Cultural Gestures, Beliefs & Symbols Are Not Universal • Cultural Use of Space • Contact & Non-contact cultures • Views from both sides of the cultural border

  9. We Live in a Globally Interdependent WorldUnderstanding How to Interact With Diverse Peoples is Imperative – Anthropology: • Will make what seems strange, exotic, or alien familiar to you • We put our own values & beliefs on hold while we learn to understand other cultures without judging them

  10. Making the Familiar Strange • We may seem strange or alien to others (EXAMPLES) • That forces us to take a critical look at our own culture • It leads us to reassess our own culture & values

  11. Test Your Cultural Literacy! • Supplemental reading – Who are the N a c i r e m a ?

  12. Cracking the Nacirema Code Percent of students who correctly identified 75% 80- 60- 40- 25% 20- 0- IDENTIFY NOT IDENTIFY

  13. Why Study Anthropology? • “Insular Americans”

  14. Making the Strange Familiar • Forces us to put our judgment on hold while we try to understand other cultures • It is our culture that leads us to create aliens

  15. Anthropology Provides Us With a Kaleidoscopic Vision of the World • This vision breaks down cultural barriers • But wait! Isn’t globalization creating a homogenous world culture? • McDonalds, Internet provide shared experiences around the globe • Yet national, racial, & ethnic differences & global inequality promote a system of global apartheid

  16. The World Political Economy Makes Knowledge & Tolerationof Other People’s Values, Customs, & Beliefs Essential • Let’s look at some examples • (exam material)

  17. “9-11” • “You’re for us, or you’re against us” (Us vs. Them) • The world is more divided today • How has this shaped our ideas about Middle Easterners?

  18. Iraq, or Al-Qaeda ? • 55% Shiites • 18% Sunnis • 18% Kurds • To many, they are all evil

  19. Xenophobia • Vincent Chin

  20. Tribal Warfare • Displaced Persons Camps, Darfur, Sudan

  21. The Diné & Black Mesahttp://www.docudharma.com/diary/9565/ • Relocation—largest since the Trail of Tears, that killed 1000s of Cherokees in the 1830s

  22. Immigration & Racist Paranoia • Mexican immigrants – • From parasites to terrorists • Lou Dobbs: "illegal alien invasion" “There's no question this type of mass immigration would have a calamitous effect on working citizens and their families”

  23. So, What Is Anthropology? • 5 Subdisciplines: • Cultural • Ethnography • Ethnology

  24. Physical • Archaeology • Linguistics • Applied

  25. 3 Key Concepts • Holism • Comparativism • Relativism: To regard alternative ways of life as valid & meaningful designs for living

  26. Ethnocentrism • The opinion that one’s own culture (values, beliefs, knowledge, behavior) is superior • Does that mean we must accept values, beliefs, & behaviors that are different from our own? • Cultural Relativism

  27. Why Anthropology? Once you have studied anthropology, you no longer look at the world from a single point of view. Having many lenses to view the world is liberating! An anthropological perspective is not just for anthropologists—it is a perspective to live by!

  28. Definitions of Culture • There are over 160 different definitions of culture! • Anthropologists emphasize different aspects of culture: • Idealist – beliefs, values, conceptions (intangible) • Materialist – behavior, artifacts (observable) • Omnibus – more inclusive (both ideal & material) • Know these for the exam

  29. Do Anthropologists Agree on Anything? • Culture is: • Adaptive – to both the physical & social environment • Culture is the primary means of human adaptation • All humans have the same capacity for culture; different cultures select different ways of adapting to their particular environments

  30. Culture is … • Learned– through enculturation people internalize its values • Culture is transmitted generation to generation • Shared– Culture is a group phenomenon • Patterned – A system of interrelated parts; we can’t understand the whole by analyzing just one part • Arbitrary – Ideas are culturally defined

  31. Idealist & Materialist Interpretations of Culture • Plato: Idealism Ideas = essence of human nature

  32. Aristotle: Materialism Seeing is believing; Economic conditions create inequality

  33. Idealism vs. Materialism • So who is right?

  34. Reductionism • The attempt to explain complex phenomena in terms of simpler or single causes • Both idealists & materialists attempt to prove that they can explain cultural reality better than their opponents: • If human nature is idealist, human action is reduced to a by-product of ideas • If human nature is materialist, ideas are reduced to by-products of material forces

  35. What Does All This Have To Do With Anthropology ! ? • The major theoretical perspectives & debates in anthropology are based on idealist & materialist perspectives • Ex: Biological Determinism is a materialist argument that biology controls human behavior • Used in eugenics, raises issues of race & IQ • Ex: Culture determines behavior • Impressionistic, over-generalizes people in a culture

  36. Are There Any Alternatives? • Holism – We are conditioned by both our biological heritage & our cultural understandings • The whole is more than the sum of its parts

  37. Dialectical • – Material & ideational factors interact dialectically to produce something new • We interact with our physical (material) environment • We produce food, consume it, it transforms us • While we do so, we change the environment • What we plant & eat is determined by our cultural definitions of what is edible

  38. That’s metaphysical because cows can talk about not having opposable thumbs!

  39. Anthro Students …ok

  40. Clifford Geertz’s Idealist Interpretation • Geertz: The Concept of Culture I Espouse is a Semiotic One…

  41. Marvin Harris’ Materialist Interpretation • Harris: The Culture Concept Comes Down to Behavior Patterns…

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